Sunset Strip

Area renowned for restaurants and nightlife on the west side of Los Angeles, California, in West Hollywood, between Beverly Hills and Hollywood, along Sunset Boulevard. Most of the Strip is within the territory of the city of West Hollywood, but from Fairfax Avenue to its eastern end at La Brea Avenue it is within Los Angeles city limits. It was a playground and for film stars and the wealthy from the 1930s to the early 1960s, and to some extent has continued to be to the present day especially on its western end. ( Many celebrities live in the area and in the nearby Hollywood Hills and Laurel Canyon.) Many of these expensive nightclubs and restaurants, like the Mocambo and Trocadero, were owned by gangsters like Mickey Cohen. It was a major center for the 1960s and 1970s counterculture. Bands like The Doors, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield ( whose "For What It's Worth" was about a police riot in the summer of 1966 against hippies ), Love, The Seeds, Frank Zappa and many others played at clubs like the Whisky A Go Go, Ciro's, Pandora's Box and the London Fog ( now the Viper Room, where River Phoenix would later die of a heroin overdose ). Also, every important rock band that existed who came to Los Angeles would play at these clubs.

In the 1970s, Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco, just east of Fairfax Avenue, became a common hang out for rock stars and groupies. Bingenheimer would introduce California to the British glam rock of T. Rex and David Bowie, and later as a DJ on KROQ play an important part in introducing punk and new wave to American radio.

Its eastern end, between Gardner and La Brea, in the 1970s became seedy and afflicted with street prostitution problems which continue to a lesser extent to the present day. The eastern end is sometimes called "Guitar Row" due to the large number of guitar stores and music industry related businesses in the area and is largely populated by Russian immigrants. Also, many young, struggling actors, musicians, and the like continue to live in that area.

The area continued to be a major focus for punk rock, new wave, and heavy metal in Los Angeles during the late 1970s and 1980s. With the increase in rents in the area during the 1980s, and the decline in the Sunset Strip heavy metal scene with the coming of grunge followed by Britpop, it ceased to be a major area for up and coming rock bands without industry sponsorship. The adaptation of "pay to play" tactics, in which bands had to pay money to play at clubs like Gazzari's (now the Key Club), the Roxy, and the Whisky a Go Go also diminished the appeal to rock bands other than as an industry showcase. The industry dominates the clubs on the Strip such as those mentioned above. Major acts perform at the House of Blues, across from the street from the Continental Hyatt House, scene of much debauchery in the 1970s amongst touring rock bands.

Increasingly, office buildings, mostly catering to the entertainment industry, and expensive hotels occupy the western half of the Strip. This area has increasingly become an adjunct of Beverly Hills only with more nightlife activity, much of it increasingly upscale. The center of more alternative music activity in Los Angeles shifted during the

1990s further east to areas like Silver Lake/Los Feliz (recently nicknamed "the eastside" rather inaccurately, but because those areas are the farthest east of any areas in Los Angeles that have a sizeable number of non-Latino whites) and the historically Latino Echo Park neighborhood.